The Call is the early-morning wake-up call from a stranger telling you that your restaurant - your business, your lifeblood, your baby - is on fire.

In the past few years alone, the nightmarish scenario has unfolded for Alice Waters of Chez Panisse, Scott Youkilis of Maverick and Laurent Katgely of Chez Spencer, among others.

David Kinch, the celebrated and widely respected chef-owner of Manresa (320 Village Lane) in Los Gatos, got that call around 4 a.m. Monday, arguably the sleepiest hour of a holiday weekend. Manresa - his 12-year-old fine dining restaurant with a perfect four Chronicle stars, two Michelin stars and an influence that sweeps across the country - was in flames.

As luck would have it, the Santa Clara County Fire Department's Los Gatos station stands only a few hundred feet from the restaurant or, as Kinch puts it, a mediocre 7-iron shot away. Firefighters put out the blaze in just over two hours, but not before it tore a hole in the roof and created considerable damage. The extent of that damage is still being assessed.

Roughly 12 hours later, Kinch and his chef de cuisine, Jessica Largey, sat on a nearby Los Gatos sidewalk, with the charred roof of their restaurant in the near distance. Their natural dispositions are level-headed - the restaurant's statement described the fire as a "setback" - but there was certainly an aura of helplessness and sadness as the sharp smell of smoke lingered in the air.

Kinch and company are still searching for answers to most of the big questions - how the fire started, how much it will cost to repair, how long the restaurant will take to reopen - but the chef is certain of one thing: Manresa will reopen in the building where it has been since its founding in 2002.

Since opening Manresa, the restaurant has been Kinch's home away from home. Unlike many of his peers, he's never opened a second restaurant, let alone one in an airport somewhere, or one in Vegas.

Stars - Chronicle, Michelin and otherwise - have come, and so has an exclusive partnership with Santa Cruz's Love Apple Farms (which will be selling its unused produce to the public during the restaurant's hiatus). Along the way, Manresa has been a breeding ground for pioneering young chefs like James Syhabout, Jeremy Fox and Charlie Parker, among others. With the current staff, Manresa has been thriving, both creatively and financially.

"I thought we were the best restaurant we had ever been" before taking the Fourth of July weekend off, says Kinch. "We were booked all summer. So, it's devastating on many fronts."

Almost instantaneously, a deluge of support exploded, from the Los Gatos community and the restaurant community throughout the Bay Area and beyond. Neighbors sent over food for staffers cleaning up the charred mess, while chefs from Europe, Asia and Australia have all expressed condolences and support.

"The outpouring - what I'm hearing from people all over the country, all over the world, people we know, don't know - is very overwhelming. I'm very humbled by it. It gives us more incentive," Kinch says.

Booked: For the first time in its colorful history, Tosca Cafe (242 Columbus Ave.) is taking dinner reservations.

Partner Ken Friedman says management made the change so the restaurant - which reopened under new ownership last fall - would be more accessible to San Franciscans who might not want to wait two hours for a table, as was the norm during peak hours.

But for those wayward diners who might stumble into the neon-lit North Beach icon by chance, walk-ins are still accepted.

And food is served until 1 a.m.

Iced: The pastry equivalent of the Lehman Bros. collapse took place this week when Crumbs - the world's largest cupcake company - shut down suddenly, sparking breathless speculation from the mediaverse: Does this signal the end of the "Sex and the City"-fueled cupcake craze that gripped much of the last decade? And is the Pinkberry/fro-yo bubble next?

Big changes? As of July 1, the sprawling and often troubled San Francisco branch of Yoshi's (1330 Fillmore St.) is under new ownership; the Oakland original remains unchanged.

The new owners have kept the music venue and restaurant open during the transition period, but it's unclear what the future holds. As New Fillmore reporter Chris Barnett points out, "You can squeeze four Nopas into that space."

That's not the only big San Francisco space undergoing changes. Amber Dhara (680 Valencia St.) shut down this week, but owner Vijay Bist is holding on to the prized Mission location, with the hopes of partnering with a name chef for a new concept.